Page 55 - Renorming of Airpower: The F-35 Enters the Combat Fleet

The Renorming of Airpower: The F-35 Arrives into the Combat Force

FIGURE 12 LT. GENERAL PREZIOSA IN HIS OFFICE IN ROME AFTER THE FIRST OF HIS SECOND LINE OF DEFENSE INTERVIEWS. 2013. CREDIT: SECOND
LINE OF DEFENSE

With the range and distance of erupting threats, and the need for global cooperation or coalitions to deal
with them, airpower needs to be modified. “We now need to have assets which operate in a distributed
manner with coalitions engaged to deal rapidly with problems. The advantage of airpower is its reach,
speed and mobility. The challenge is to coalesce capabilities to put resources rapidly up against threats and
challenges early enough to deal with them.”
More by chance, than by design, the F-35 is entering the global scene at this moment in global history.
“This is an information warfare airplane which can share data across a fleet of global players. The reach of
the F-35 means that my planes operating in the Western Mediterranean can receive data from throughout the
region. And it is a plane with coalition designed into the aircraft.”
The plane is an information warfare aircraft, or an aircraft built to operate very differently from legacy
aircraft. “Command and control capabilities are built into every cockpit of the F-35; the challenge will be to
leverage those capabilities and the distributed decision making capabilities inherent in a fleet of F-35s.”
He underscored that a strategic shift towards pockets of defense and security challenges around the
European, African, Mediterranean and Middle East regions meant that Europe, the United States and others
needed to shape collaborative approaches to insert airpower when appropriate rapidly. And the F-35 as a
key distributed force asset was the right match for meeting distributed challenges.
“The fusion system built into every cockpit will allow shared coalition decision making that is required for the
kinds of multi-national operations which are becoming the norm. We are not fighting in mass; we are
applying tools rapidly and directly to discrete problems and challenges. This is not yesterday’s aircraft being
applied to the challenges of the next 30 years; it is about reshaping concepts of operations for coalitions
meeting the evolving new challenges and operational requirements.”
The human-machine interface allows the plane to provide for enhanced decision making capabilities in the
cockpit as the famous Observe-Orient-Decide and Act loop of John Boyd sees the OO be largely done by
machines and the pilots focusing on the Decide and Act function.

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